June 15, 2017: An update from Mitch
We’re wrapping up a busy ‘pick-up season’ here at Re-Fridge and now that we have a minute to breath, I wanted to give our audience of friends and users an update on what’s going on. On a personal note, I just graduated from Bates College in Lewiston. Looking back on four great, sometimes challenging years, I’m sort of sad to be leaving college, but excited about the added time I’ll be able to put into my work and glad that my business will keep me close to the campus life… Read more.
April 27, 2017: Brunswick college student’s business makes the most of mini-fridges (The Forecaster)
For a guy in the refrigerator business, Mitch Newlin doesn’t have much time to chill out. The Brunswick native, who is a Bates College senior and full-time member of Gelato Fiasco’s management team, commits more than 20 hours a week to Re-Fridge, the mini-fridge re-sale company he founded in 2015. Read more.
April 3, 2017: The Buzz: New restaurants and a new deal for a Bates entrepreneur (Lewiston Sun Journal)
Mitch Newlin’s Re-Fridge has struck a deal with Goodwill Industries of Northern New England to buy its unwanted mini-fridges and, Newlin hopes, find them good college homes. Re-Fridge is on 25 college campuses. Newlin buys used, unwanted fridges from students leaving school in May, fixes or cleans them up and sells them to incoming college students in the fall, undercutting big-box store prices. Read more.
March 7, 2017: Did you hear about our new partnership with Goodwill NNE?
Aiming to reduce waste, Re-Fridge is partnering with Goodwill Industries of Northern New England to accept and re-home unwanted fridges. Halfway through its second year of operations, Re-Fridge, a Brunswick-based company that operates primarily on college campuses, is partnering with Goodwill Industries of Northern New England (Goodwill NNE) to help them tackle a tricky problem: What to do with unwanted mini-fridges. Read more.
February 14, 2017: An update from Mitch, president and founder
Well, we’re a month into the new year. The Re-Fridge management team nearly worked their collective butts off in 2016 and we’re excited about what 2017 will bring. We’re hitting the ground running. Check out what’s going on at Re-Fridge: New schools! As of this spring, Re-Fridge will be operating at around 25 campuses in the northeast. Most recently, we’re in talks with students at Thomas College in Waterville, Maine, and Quinnipiac University in Hamden, Conn., to bring Re-Fridge to those schools… Read more.
November 6, 2016: We’re prepping for the 2016 Students for Zero Waste conference
We’re excited and honored (and, okay, a little nervous) to be presenting at this year’s Students for Zero Waste conference, presented by our friends PLAN, the Post Landfill Action Network, taking place at the University of New Hampshire in Durham on November 11 and 12. This is the third annual conference, with students and other attendees coming from all over the country to collaborate, share, and learn, all with a focus on reducing waste.
We’ve been working on a special presentation about low- and no-cost ways for student groups and other organizations to share their message, to organize, and do their business admin. Sure, it might be kinda dry, but we’re hoping it will help groups make the most with smaller budgets. Plus, we’re planning to put the whole presentation online after the conference so anyone can use our tips and tricks.
Here’s some more info from PLAN about the upcoming conference:
Join the Post-Landfill Action Network as we host 500 students, activists, artists, academics and other zero waste heroes. We will convene to discuss challenges, share solutions, and imagine a world without waste. Be a part of it.
Full conference schedule: http://www.postlandfill.org/conference/
Information on travel scholarships and ridesharing available in registration: https://plan.eventsmart.com/events/students-for-zero-waste-2016/
Food and housing is provided! More information available in registration.
Speakers, workshop leaders, partners and sponsors include our friends at: Food Recovery Network, World Centric, Plastic Pollution Coalition, The Story of Stuff Project, 5 Gyres, Toxics Action Center, Energy Justice Network and Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives (GAIA)
Questions? Email Faye@postlandfill.org
Check out PLAN’s video for the upcoming conference.
October 8, 2016: We competed on Green Light Maine… and lost!
In case you missed it, last month we went head to head against another college-based startup on the TV show Greenlight Maine. Greenlight Maine is a televised competition where startups vie, advised and judged by experienced business leaders, for a chance at more than $100,000 in investment. The first challenge, last year, was won by Garbage To Garden.
We entered the competition earlier this year and made it onto the televised rounds. For the show’s season two premiere, we competed against Tip Whip, an Orono-based ride hailing company where riders tip what they want. While that episode was the end of the line for us, we were proud to have made it so far.
September 10, 2016: Re-Fridge opens season two of Greenlight Maine with Tip Whip.
Maine’s take on Sharktank, Greenlight Maine is a competition whereby entrepreneurs compete to win the confidence of some of Maine’s most successful business and corporate leaders and over $100,000. While this episode was the end of the line for us, we are proud to have made it so far. Watch here.
August 3, 2016: Move in is coming up! Watch this video to learn why Re-Fridge is your best option.
July 18, 2016: Re-Fridge and Post Landfill Action Network in talks to collaborate, looking to bring increased sustainability to college campus network
Since being introduced to the environmental group PLAN earlier this year, Re-Fridge management has been excited about the prospect of partnering, according to company founder Mitch Newlin. PLAN, which stands for Post Landfill Action Network, is a cooperative, non-profit network of student leaders working to achieve zero-waste campuses at universities around the country… Read more.
July 16, 2016: Re-Fridge to compete as one of 26 semi-finalists in the Greenlight Maine challenge and TV show for chance at more than $100,000
Mitch Newlin, the founder and president of Re-Fridge, says he was feeling pretty good when he launched into his pitch to business experts two Saturdays ago, at Husson University’s Westbrook campus. Still, it was anyone’s guess what would happen. The Re-Fridge team has recently learned that they will be one of 26 companies to compete in the semi-final round, out of more than 50 companies to enter the contest… Read more.
June 24, 2016: Eight essential items for freshman year according to students
Whether in-state or out of state, the list of things you need for college just seems to grow and grow. No matter how many visits to Target or how many packages arrive from Amazon, it feels like it doesn’t make a dent on all “the essential” materials needed for college. You can print out list after list… Read more.
June 6, 2016: Re-Fridge partners with Publerati
Re-Fridge is always looking to connect with, learn from, and share news about great organizations doing good things for the planet or for their customers. So we’re very excited to announce a new partnership with Publerati. Publerati is a new concept, born in the early years of the digital revolution in book publishing, aiming to increase access to high-quality fiction from around the world and doing it with a social purpose… Read more.
May 27, 2016: Unwanted mini-fridges become profit for college student (WCSH6)
207’s Rob Caldwell and Caroline Cornish showed a piece on Re-fridge that followed Mitch on a round of pickups at Bowdoin College. Although Re-fridge began as more than just a whim, and our prices currently range from $69 to $194 (instead of the too-good-to-be-true $20-$100 they talked about in the video), it’s a great piece that nicely shows the process by which fridges come to us! Watch here.
May 4, 2016: Mitch Newlin ’12 Entrepreneur
During his four years at Waynflete, Mitch Newlin always had a lot on his plate. Whether playing sports, attending meetings and events of RAaW, committing himself to the Kakamega Orphanage, entertaining friends and teachers with his outlandish… Read more.
May 3, 2016: Bates junior’s business flipping fridges expands to 16 college campuses (Lewiston Sun Journal)
A Bates College junior inspired by fellow students who couldn’t be bothered to take their refrigerators home for the summer — or even to move them to avoid a $75 room-cleaning fine from the college — last year created a business of buying and selling used dorm fridges. Later this month, Mitch Newlin is expanding Re-Fridge to 15 other college campuses in Maine and Massachusetts. Read more.
May 2, 2016: College Student Starts Business Recycling Dorm Fridges (Dozens of newspapers, websites, and radio news broadcasts picked up the AP article. Link is to US News and World Report.)
A college student appalled at the dorm furnishings his roommates were leaving behind his freshman year has started a booming business recycling mini refrigerators. Mitch Newlin, of Brunswick, Maine, goes to Bates College, a private, liberal arts college in Lewiston, Maine, about 35 miles north of Portland. The 22-year-old buys dorm refrigerators at the end of the school year and sells them to incoming students the next year. Read more.
May 1, 2016: Re-Fridge turns a cool profit for Bates College entrepreneur (Portland Press Herald)
An economics major, Mitch Newlin seizes upon an Earth-friendly solution to the wastefulness he witnessed on campus. And he delivers! When Mitch Newlin saw the stuff his two college roommates left in their dorm room at the end of freshman year, he shuddered. Read more.
April 25, 2016: The 5 struggles of having a college roommate (and how to deal with them)
College is essentially one long ride on the struggle bus. From functioning on minimal sleep to avoiding the Freshman 15, it sometimes feels like classwork is the easiest part of college. If you’ve ever lived with a college roommate, you’ve definitely dealt with these issues. Read more.
April 22, 2016: Buying and selling “pre-loved” fridges, Brunswick-based Re-Fridge launches on campuses in Northeast
Even as a sophomore at Bates College, in Lewiston, Maine, Mitch Newlin realized there had to be a better way. In 2015, after seeing students leave unwanted belongings behind during “move-out” at the end of the school year, Newlin offered to buy the mini-fridges that his classmates no longer wanted. He stored the fridges over the summer and then sold them to incoming students in the fall, delivering the fridges for free and guaranteeing to undercut local big box stores. Read more.
April 20, 2016: Measuring our impact, i.e. doing what every single business should do from the start
Promoting environmental sustainability is part of our mission at Re-Fridge,but just how much environmental improvement will come from our work? It’s a difficult question and one that we think about a lot. We’ve done a little homework and have found some interesting and promising estimates. Take, for example, the idea of extending the lifespan of mini-fridges. Read more.
March 21, 2016: Why Your College Is Going Green (and how you can contribute, too)
The college experience can be ironic. Spending tens of thousands for the prospect of a high-paying job? Sure. A chance to “discover yourself” while being thrown into dorms and lectures with hundreds of other like-minded students? Check. But perhaps no facet of college is as glaringly ironic as the element of waste and inefficiency. Read more.
March 18, 2016: 7 Ways to Save Money in College (So You Can Afford to Graduate)
Besides spending thousands on tuition (thanks Mom and Dad!) there are plenty of ways to spend money in college, from setting up the perfect dorm to hitting Glastonbury during your semester in the UK. These seven (and a half) steps will help you save along the way, so you don’t have to shake down your couch for loose change to afford the cap and gown. Read more.
March 10, 2016: Check out our animation video here!
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